To begin todays lesson, I ask students to take back out their mini-books that we have been working on recently from their blue writing folders. Using our Latin Suffix chart and our books, I review with the students what we have learned so far(including: the functions of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, what the Latin language is, and how we still use parts of Latin today through adding word ending parts, or suffixes, to words we use daily). I also ask the students to open up their books and review the seven Latin suffixes we entered into our books now. We review the suffixes and what they do or mean!

Yesterday, our class had a little debate on whether or not we used Latin suffixes in words often, and we were pretty much split 50/50. After our debate, we took time to do a little digging through our texts by participating in a Latin Suffix Scavenger Hunt. Today, I ask the kids, “Well, what can we decide? Do we use Latin suffixes a lot, or not so much?” Students offer their insights, and all of them say that we’ve found a lot of words that include these endings, so we really do use them a lot!

I have to agree with the students-these Latin suffixes are used all the time! And, after our work yesterday, we’ve got a list of examples that work for each suffix. I ask the kids to bring their books and grab a seat on the rug near our easel. Let’s go through and look at what they’ve found and add it to our class chart! The kids come over, and we start with our first suffix, -able, and list any words we found on our chart! As we go through each suffix ending, students make comments, like “Wow, that’s a lot of words!” or, “Oooh, I found that one, too!”. The kids are truly seeing how much these suffixes are used and how important they are to our language!

Now that we have all of these words listed, I say, “Boys and girls-wow! You really DID find a lot of words with suffixes endings! But, I have a challenge for you! Do you think you could choose one word that you like the most from each suffix list here and create a sentence with it? That would show you are a true master of Latin suffixes!” Students are already saying things like, “Oh yeah! I can do it!”, or “Here’s one: Jim is a likable boy!”

I send students back to their seats and let them begin by turning to their first suffix page, Page 2: Suffix –able. I ask the kids to choose their favorite word from our list and create one sentence using that word at the bottom of their page. When they’re finished, they can go on to their next suffix, and so on, until they’ve created a sentence for each of the seven suffixes we’ve learned about! The studetns get to work and as they do, I circulate to check on students’ work and ensure the words are being used correctly within the convention of our English language. Any students that finish early begin to decorate their Latin Suffix Book to make it “extra fancy”!

At the close of our lesson today, I ask the students to turn to their favorite page with their favorite sentence! I have each student read just that one sentence where I can quickly assess how each student is able to use the word correctly in a sentence! Then I collect all of our finished books! What old world masterpieces we’ve created!